4 years in Iraq - how we got there (part 2)

Front paged at Booman Tribune, ePluribus Media and My Left Wing

This is the second part to what I have now decided will be a three part series (instead of two) about the run up to the Iraq invasion. The idea was suggested by Dood Abides and if you missed Part 1, it is here.

Part 1 outlined the background prior to the Bush administration taking office, while this part will outline some of the manufactured intelligence and the propaganda war levied by members of the Bush administration. Part 3 will outline then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council and will also dissect then-candidate Bush’s comments during the 2000 Presidential debate regarding when he would use military force.

Part 1 ended by asking the question “So, what happened?” with respect to how we ended up in Iraq after the following:

On the heels of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their administration had overwhelming support from the American people. A "war on terror" was launched – with Afghanistan as the first stop. Terrorist training camps were destroyed. Funding for terrorism was frozen in many instances. The Taliban – supporters of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda was defeated and driven from power in Afghanistan in a few short months.

Countries like Iran, Libya and Syria made overtures towards the United States to offer some assistance in Afghanistan and to work towards normalizing relations between the countries. And then a drastic shift in focus changed everything.

Here is what happened

Over the next two to three years (from early 2002 through the end of 2004), a series of decisions, both policy and operational, as well as a number of events – some within the control of the Bush administration, some a direct or indirect result of their actions, some which were predicted by many military, intelligence and governmental experts and some out of everyone’s control –changed the course of the “war on terror” and shed a spotlight (and numerous questions) on the true motives and actions of the administration.

There were reports out of the United Kingdom that the decision to invade Iraq was made irrespective of the underlying evidence and that the “facts were being fixed around the policy”. Even before these reports were made public, there was doubt among the intelligence community as to the motives and evidence cited to divert resources from Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq. US intelligence agencies had dismissed and discredited evidence that was repeatedly referenced by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other members of the administration. Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned that “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”.

Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address included the following “sixteen words” that would spark a controversy leading to charges of falsified evidence, backtracking by the administration and the subsequent leaking of the name and front company used by a covert CIA agent who was in the nuclear counter proliferation unit:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

That comment was followed by the following statements:

Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

The problem with those two statements is that they not only were not true, but there was much warning from many intelligence sources that they were not true. Therefore, as repressive as Saddam Hussein was towards his people, he couldn’t possibly have explained these activities any more credibly – they just were false accusations.

During 2004 and 2005, word leaked out to the public that these statements were in fact, not true. However, the US military was already involved in an increasingly violent occupation of Iraq. Attacks against US troops were increasing, and the country was sliding towards the civil war that we are now witnessing and our troops are now caught in the middle of.

There are three revelations that caused many people both here in the United States as well as around the world to realize that the administration at a minimum, misled and misspoke about the validity of the evidence that accused Saddam Hussein of having weapons of mass destruction. These revelations are (1) the release of the Downing Street Memos in 2005 (2) the reports that the “aluminum tubes” and “Africa uranium” claims were known to be false at the time they were made and (3) the news that the administration, mainly the Vice President’s office, was not only relying on evidence that lacked credibility but was so exaggerated that Colin Powell reportedly threw the first draft of the speech he was to give the UN in the air and exclaimed “I’m not reading this. This is bullshit” (this will be discussed in Part 3).

As the United States attempted to build support for an invasion of Iraq, it relied heavily on the UK as an ally. However, the case for invading Iraq was met with immediate questions from top British intelligence officials. After a number of meetings between British intelligence and top US advisors, including Condoleezza Rice, confidential internal documents were prepared by UK intelligence that expressed doubts as to the motives of the United States as well as the validity of the reasons and evidence used in order to build support for the invasion. These documents were collectively known as the “Downing Street Memos”.

In the Downing Street Memo (dated July 23, 2002), it was clear that UK intelligence was concerned about two things – the lack of post invasion planning and the lack of real evidence:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

This was July 2002. Yet, a full six months later, President Bush was still indicating that no decision had been made to go to war and that he “hoped the Iraq situation will be resolved peacefully”. Additionally, during a meeting between Condoleezza Rice and a number of US Senators regarding Iraq back in March 2002, President Bush poked his head into the room and said “Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out.” Hardly words of someone who was still preaching diplomacy and negotiations with Iraq.

Around the same time, the White House Iraq Group was created, headed up by then-White House Chief of Staff Andy Card. The purpose of the White House Iraq Group (“WHIG”) was to “sell the idea” of an Iraq invasion to the American public. When asked about the purpose of the WHIG, Card replied “from a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August”.

Other members of the WHIG included Senior Advisor Karl Rove, Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, her top assistant and current National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and a number of other top officials. Over the next eight months, the WHIG members aggressively pushed for war with Iraq– through use of terms such as “mushroom cloud”, hinting that Saddam had nuclear and biological weapons that he was ready to use and by appearing on the Sunday morning talk show circuit.

Many of the WHIG members had been questioned in the case surrounding the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name and front employer in order to discredit and silence critics of their assertions, and Libby has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in this case.

Although the release of the Downing Street Memo didn’t get as much attention in the United States as it did around the world, it was one of the more important pieces of information that would show the true intent of this administration with respect to its decision to invade Iraq. For starters, it came from one of our staunchest allies. Secondly, it expressed significant reservations by top intelligence officials as to the motives and the lack of evidence surrounding the decision to invade Iraq. Third, it was a highly credible source, and it reflected the gap between the rhetoric used by the administration and the doubts privately raised by our allies. Lastly, it reflected these doubts at a point in time that was nearly a full year before the invasion actually started.

Another piece of evidence cited was the “aluminum tubes” that were used as proof of Saddam Hussein’s intentions to build a nuclear weapon. The intelligence sources President Bush cited in his State of the Union address were actually overruled and proven to be inaccurate by a number of other (and more senior) intelligence agencies and officials as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (“IAEA”). Not only was this debunked, but it was debunked back in 2002 – well before the 2003 State of the Union address.

A little more than a month after the State of the Union address, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei gave a presentation to the UN Security Council, where the issue of the aluminum tubes was raised again. In his presentation, ElBaradei stated firmly that a thorough investigation into the tubes, including the measurement, width and strength of the tubes found that the tubes was unlikely to have been used for anything related to centrifuges in making nuclear material:

Based on available evidence, the IAEA team has concluded that Iraq efforts to import these aluminum tubes were not likely to have been related to the manufacture of centrifuge, and moreover that it was highly unlikely that Iraq could have achieved the considerable redesign needed to use them in a revived centrifuge program.

At least a year before ElBaradei’s presentation to the UN, senior members at the CIA, experts at the Energy Department and nuclear scientists had all cast serious doubts on the theory that the tubes were to be used for centrifuges:

But almost a year before [in 2001], Ms. Rice's staff had been told that the government's foremost nuclear experts seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and two senior administration officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets.

The White House, though, embraced the disputed theory that the tubes were for nuclear centrifuges, an idea first championed in April 2001 by a junior analyst at the C.I.A. Senior nuclear scientists considered that notion implausible, yet in the months after 9/11, as the administration built a case for confronting Iraq, the centrifuge theory gained currency as it rose to the top of the government.

Why the administration deliberately embraced highly dubious evidence and did not share the dubious nature of this evidence with Congress or the American people has never been answered. Obviously, an easy conclusion would be because the administration was already committed to war with Iraq and needed to “fix the facts around the policy”. However, this pales in comparison to the issues and circumstances surrounding the “uranium from Africa” claim.

Back in late 2002, the Pentagon, under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, created the Office of Special Plans (“OSP”). This was, in essence, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney’s project, run by and comprised of neoconservatives whose goal was to find evidence of Saddam’s ties to al-Qaeda and his stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The OSP’s true mission, according to Pentagon advisors close to the OSP, was to discredit the CIA’s findings with respect to Iraq, al-Qaeda and its suspected weapons program.

According to the Pentagon official:

Rumsfeld and his colleagues believed that the C.I.A. was unable to perceive the reality of the situation in Iraq. “The agency was out to disprove linkage between Iraq and terrorism,” the Pentagon adviser told me. “That’s what drove them. If you’ve ever worked with intelligence data, you can see the ingrained views at C.I.A. that color the way it sees data.” The goal of Special Plans, he said, was “to put the data under the microscope to reveal what the intelligence community can’t see.”

According to Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative magazine, the OSP, run by Undersecretary of Defense and neoconservative Douglas Feith, was “a parallel intelligence center set up in the Pentagon to develop alternative sources of information in support of war against Iraq.” The “uranium from Africa” story originated from the OSP.

At the same time, Vice President Cheney was leaning heavily on the CIA to come up with some evidence linking Saddam’s regime to al-Qaeda and to the “stockpiles” of chemical and biological weapons that would be used to make the case for war. According to a number of CIA officials, Cheney and his Chief of Staff had made “multiple visits” to the CIA over a one-year period in order to put pressure on the CIA to come up with evidence that would fit the conclusion that Saddam was looking to build nuclear weapons.

On numerous occasions, the Africa-uranium connection was thoroughly refuted, by France refuted the claim to the United States back in July 2002. Additionally, two individuals who traveled to Niger in order to determine the accuracy of these claims both refuted such claims. Ambassador Joseph Wilson and four star Marine General Carlton W. Fulford Jr. made trips to Africa during February 2002, and both came back satisfied that there was no accuracy to the “Niger documents”.

There were a number of other reports and sources that also indicated the documents used to “prove” Saddam had ambitions on purchasing “yellowcake uranium” from Africa were forgeries. The American Conservative reported that the Office Of Special Plans was, on some level, involved in the forgeries, either initially or in a manner that would present the information directly to the White House without the proper vetting by other intelligence agencies.

Finally, after these claims continued to be repeated by the administration (and the invasion of Iraq had already commenced), former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson authored an Op-Ed column in July 2003 reiterating his findings from the 2002 trip to Niger which did not find any evidence of truth to the claim.

What happened next, and what had been going on behind the scenes for the prior few weeks can only be described as highly questionable at best and downright sinister at worst. Instead of disputing the fact that the Niger documents were forgeries, a campaign was undertaken by high level governmental officials to “discredit” Ambassador Wilson. This included the leaking of classified and confidential information to reporters about Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, who was a covert CIA agent working on nuclear counterproliferation. As a result of this, a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate, and Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury in the investigation.

While there is enough information to fill a book on these events alone (thanks, emptywheel), suffice to say that the information surrounding the leak of Plame’s covert status is rather voluminous and well documented here and here.

Part 3 will examine then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council as well as dissect then-candidate Bush’s comment during the 2000 debates regarding when he would use military force (this was referenced in Part 1 which was posted last night.

4 years in Iraq - how we got there (part 1)

Front paged at Booman Tribune, ePluribus Media and My Left Wing

In his very recommended diary from last night, Dood Abides suggested that, in light of the upcoming 4 year anniversary of the Iraq invasion, one of us brave kossacks put forth a detailed account of the run up to the invasion.

Well, in addition to being up for said challenge, it just so happens that I have been compiling this information as the first chapter of the book I am writing (and I have 9 chapters written so far). So, I figured that it would be good to share this information, and of course it is chock full of linky-goodness. As a bonus to me, I can see if I am off base or if the information I have is (as I think) pretty damn good. Since there are more than 40 footnotes and 13 pages, I will cut it down a bit and break it into two parts – one tonight and one tomorrow or Sunday – all leading up to the 19th.

At least we will have the actual facts and the depth of the deception in one place, tied neatly together with a shiny bow. So, consider this Part 1 – The Past is Prologue (also the title of the first chapter of my book). Part 1 will focus on the background and framework that was put in place even before this administration took office. Part 2 will highlight the propaganda war that was waged by the Administration in the run up to the invasion as well as the “evidence” that was known to be false, but was still asserted as true.

Eating their words

In 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney gave a speech to the Discovery Institute in Seattle. During this speech, Cheney talked about the victory in the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein eighteen months earlier. As part of his comments, he mentioned the decision to not continue the war into Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein at the time. Based on Cheney’s rhetoric from 2001 through the present, one would be very surprised to know that he said the following words about Iraq in 1992:

"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.

"And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

During the campaign of 2000, then-candidate George W. Bush chided Vice President Al Gore about “nation building” and how it is not the United States’ responsibility to engage in such practice. Additionally, he talked about when it would be appropriate to use military force. And from the transcript of the first Presidential Debate with Al Gore, his words are rather strong in that respect:

Well, if it's in our vital national interest, and that means whether our territory is threatened or people could be harmed, whether or not the alliances are -- our defense alliances are threatened, whether or not our friends in the Middle East are threatened. That would be a time to seriously consider the use of force. Secondly, whether or not the mission was clear. Whether or not it was a clear understanding as to what the mission would be. Thirdly, whether or not we were prepared and trained to win. Whether or not our forces were of high morale and high standing and well-equipped. And finally, whether or not there was an exit strategy.

Clearly, these two men’s minds changed in a drastic way. Obviously, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 could be pointed to as a turning point in their view of America’s place in the world. But more and more evidence has come out over the past few years indicating that the invasion of Iraq wasn’t necessarily part of the “war on terror” – rather it was discussed at great length during early 2001 at the outset of the Bush Presidency. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s comments on this topic were made in a series of interviews after he was forced from office at the end of 2002, after two years in the Bush cabinet:

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein is a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told 60 Minutes. "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime."

Around the same time, a neoconservative think tank calling themselves Project for a New American Century (“PNAC”) was putting the finishing touches on its signature report, titled, Rebuilding America’s Defenses (warning: .pdf). This think tank was made up of former Reagan and Ford Administration officials as well as many of the people who would shape the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration. The members who wrote this report included Frederick Kagan (architect of the 2007 escalation for Iraq), Bush Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and (the disgraced) I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby who, of course became Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff. Other members of the PNAC included Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Former Vice President Dan Quayle, Steve Forbes and Zalmay Khalizad, who would become the US Ambassador to Iraq as well as the UN Ambassador (replacing John Bolton).

PNAC started back in 1997, and its’ mission was essentially to return to the days of Reagan – an emphasis on increased defense spending and a strong military that will be “ready to meet present and future challenges”. Its’ Statement of Principles reads like one of the many speeches President Bush has made over the past few years: (1) Increase defense spending significantly, (2) Challenge regimes hostile to our interests, (3) Promote the cause of political and economic freedom and (4) Preserve and extend an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

One of the first items of business for the PNAC was a letter in 1998 to then-President Clinton urging him to, in so many words, attack Iraq:

Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

Obviously, Clinton did not heed their requests. Unfazed and still determined, PNAC soon went to work on Rebuilding America’s Defenses. The main goal of Rebuilding America’s Defenses was to reassert America as the world’s only dominant military and economic superpower. The report grew out of a dissatisfaction towards the Clinton administration for cuts in defense spending and what was viewed as weakening of the military. It sought to use the budget surpluses from the Clinton administration to focus on defense spending and growing the military.

The four core military goals of Rebuilding America’s Defenses were to (1) Defend the American homeland, (2) Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars, (3) Shape the security environment in critical regions and (4) Transform US Forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”.

Mind you, at this point in time (mid-2000) America was enjoying one of the longest eras where there was not a major military conflict it was involved in. True, during the Clinton years, there was the involvement in Somalia, which ended rather poorly. And there was a NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia that was led by the United States. However, in both instances, US troop levels were not at a significant level (less than 10,000 at its peak). Under Reagan, while there wasn’t a major military operation, the 1980s were marked by the threat of “mutually assured destruction” with the former Soviet Union, as well as military missions in Latin America, small missions in Lebanon as well as Grenada. The 50’s had the Korean War, the late 60’s through mid 70’s had Vietnam, and the early 90’s had the first Gulf War (with US troop levels well in excess of 100,000).

So, at a time where there was finally no major military conflict, it is interesting to note that this group of neoconservatives, most of whom had strong ties to prior administrations and military-focused foreign policy initiatives were looking to reassert the US military in a dominant “world police” type of manner.

In order to achieve the military objectives stated in Rebuilding America’s Defenses, a “transformational change” would need to take place. Since the report called for a large shift in American policy, spending and opinion, the PNAC members realized that this objective could likely take years to achieve. However, there is one ominously foreshadowing passage in the document (on page 51) that would hasten the transformation process:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.

Understanding that there had not been an attack on American soil on par with Pearl Harbor since, well, Pearl Harbor, this prediction turned out to be eerily accurate, and rather quickly after the Bush administration (with many of these same people) took office. I want to point out here that this statement, in no way, draws any correlation between PNAC and the responsibility for the September 11 attacks, since there is no evidence whatsoever that links the US government, or any of its members (past or present) to these attacks in any way.

However, there is something to be said about a major foreign policy initiative undertaken by former and soon-to-be current members of the US government that includes a passage referring to an attack on the United States as an opportunity to pursue an aggressive foreign policy reversal from the past decade. Consider the following facts:

• A significant number of former government officials and policy makers, as part of a think tank, create a “signature foreign policy” initiative;




• One of the first items on their agenda is to urge President Clinton to attack Iraq (or aggressively pursue regime change;




• Their signature initiative is not likely to take hold, or will require a long process and will be difficult to “sell” to an American public that has finally seen relative peace from a military operations standpoint, UNLESS a significant catastrophic event occurs which can jumpstart the initiative;




• A presidential election is held around the same time that results in many of these former officials becoming part of the current administration;




• Almost from the outset of the new administration, foreign policy is focused on major military operations in the Middle East – with a focus on Iraq;




• That same year, the first major “catastrophic and catalyzing event” in nearly 60 years occurs in the United States;




• Immediately after this event, these same officials are looking to link Iraq to this catastrophic event, even though there is little, if any evidence to link the two; and




• Within two years, the United States is engaged in two, simultaneous major wars (just as outlined in the PNAC report).

Fast forward to late 2001.

America was just shaken by the worst terror attacks ever to hit our country. There was an outpouring of sympathy from all corners of the world. Our country came to a screeching halt. Even Major League Baseball games were cancelled as the American people struggled to come to grips with what had just occurred. People from all over the country traveled to New York City in order to help with the rescue and recovery missions at “Ground Zero”.

Someone had to pay for doing this to America. There was a vow to find those responsible and bring them to justice. Soon, all eyes (and evidence) turned toward Osama bin Laden and the terrorist group al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda had threatened the United States before, and even had a few “successes” like the bombing of the USS Cole, or various embassy bombings.

On the heels of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their administration had overwhelming support from the American people. A “war on terror” was launched – with Afghanistan as the first stop. Terrorist training camps were destroyed. Funding for terrorism was frozen in many instances. The Taliban – supporters of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda was defeated and driven from power in Afghanistan in a few short months.

Countries like Iran, Libya and Syria made overtures towards the United States to offer some assistance in Afghanistan and to work towards normalizing relations between the countries. And then a drastic shift in focus changed everything.

So, what happened?

What happened comes in Part 2....

The Iraq legacy that is way too overlooked

Front paged at Booman Tribune, ePluribus Media and My Left Wing

Over the past few years, there have been a few reports of the sheer magnitude of the refugees flooding other countries as well as the number of Iraqis who have been displaced from their homes, have been forced to flee their neighborhood due to crime or are spending all of their time (and resources) looking for a way out of Iraq.

While this is a horrible enough story in and of itself, the result and byproduct of this is not just how many people are leaving Iraq (hint: over 2.3 million people since 2003) but just who is leaving and what will become of the country once we ultimately leave.

When you peel back the layers, when you look underneath the surface of who is fleeing the country, you see that a big legacy that the US will leave for the Iraqis is that not only was a civil war ignited, but a substantial portion of the middle class and professional society no longer call Iraq their home. So even if all of the killings cease – even if the civil war somehow abates - the resultant society will be void of many of those who can help heal the country and bring it forward.

Earlier this year, an article on the History News Network discussed the “Death of Iraq’s Middle Class”. The article was written by a historian who traveled to Iraq in 2003 to assess the condition of Baghdad’s universities and libraries in the wake of the invasion. The President of one such university (and also a historian) was excited about the prospects that the university(ies) would play over the next few years.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as planned:

Today, Al-Bakaa lives in Boston as one of more than 1.5 million refugees who have fled the civil war in Iraq. Back in Baghdad this week his campus was bombed and at least 60 students waiting for minibuses to take them home were killed.

The article goes on to discuss some things that we all knew, such as the fact that middle class Sunni-Shiite marriages are now “deadly” where they were once acceptable. But it touched on a statistic that was even more disconcerting: that 40% of Iraq’s middle class has fled the country since 2003. The conclusion drawn by the author?

Add this to torrent a slow trickle of Iraq's educated classes from the 1970s forward and we've reached a point where virtually everyone who could leave has left or fled to Kurdistan. For all intents and purposes, Iraq's middle class is near death and what is left is just a pale shadow of its former self. It has ceased to be a relevant feature of Iraqi society.

In Iraq, the loss of this class means the loss of the basis of civil society and the disappearance of those Iraqis who would be committed to a non-sectarian form of politics.

A little less than a year ago, the Christian Science Monitor had a good roundup of articles that addressed the exodus from Iraq of university professors, academics and other middle class members. It discusses a USA Today report how nearly 25% of Iraqi adults are suffering from some form of PTDS (I would guess that the number has grown over the past year). It talks about how many Iraqis have become withdrawn – being confined to their homes in fear of what is outside.

So why I am I bringing this up now? Well, sadly, things have gotten worse and it isn’t just the professors and middle class that are leaving now. A first hand account of one family’s current struggle is in this week’s Newsweek and it is just heartwrenching. While it goes into great detail of one woman’s experience in visiting her uncle in Baghdad, I couldn’t do her story justice by reproducing a few blurbs here. I highly recommend that you read her family’s story.

But there are other observations that the author makes which are not limited to her family, and are rather telling about what type of country Iraq has become – as well as the bleaker prospects of it even becoming a 20th century civilization once the dust settles, the troops leave and the civil war subsides.

The sheer numbers are staggering:

About 50,000 people escape Baghdad each month. A staggering 1.7 million are displaced within Iraq, while almost 2 million more have sought refuge in Syria and Jordan, 130,000 in Egypt and 50,000 in Iran. Even Sweden is feeling the effects of this war: last year alone, 9,000 Iraqis applied for asylum there, and 90 percent of those requests were approved.

Now, I am NOT saying that life was just grand under Saddam Hussein’s regime. But people did have jobs, electricity, clean water, could go outside without fear of being killed and did not have to worry about their homes being taken over by death squads. Hell, as noted above, Sunni-Shiite marriages were, if not outright common, then certainly not uncommon.

As for now? Well, the best that most can hope for is to get out. Those who had good jobs – had advanced degrees or specialized skills are running out of luck as quickly as they are running out of places to apply their skills.

The exodus has not only scattered my family, it's hollowed out Iraq's most skilled classes—doctors, engineers, managers and bureaucrats. Baghdad was once home to one of the most educated populaces in the Middle East. (I find it amazing that almost every single one of my cousins, and their kids, speak fluent English.) Many were part of a generation of middle-class professionals who, during the 1970s, transformed Iraq into the Middle East's most diversified economy. In my family alone, there's at least one scientist, an engineer, two teachers and an accountant looking for work in other countries. Omar recently sent me his résumé from Amman (like most Iraqis, he's not allowed to work there legally) in hopes of finding work in the United States. It turns out that he was one of Iraq's top hydraulic engineers, and helped design the water systems that we blew up.

There really isn’t much more to add to this. But it does make you stop and take pause. What has been done to this country? What has been done by our leaders in our country’s name? What will become of Iraq?

There is little to no middle class left. The majority of professors are leaving. Who will teach tomorrow’s professionals? The professional class is leaving. Engineers, museum curators, doctors, scientists and accountants. How can a country rebuild itself when many of those who are skilled to help the rebuilding (and the healing) are long gone?

What have we done?

Gonzales will NEVER resign...ever

Front paged at Booman Tribune, ePluribus Media and My Left Wing. Recommended at Daily Kos

As much as it would be nice to see Alberto Gonzales step aside to attend to “family matters” or to “pursue other opportunities” as so many others in the Bush administration (see Card, McClellan, Rumsfeld, “Brownie”, Fleischer, Miers and a whole slew of others) have – unfortunately this one isn’t going to happen.

While I seriously hope to eat my words, the fact is that Gonzales is probably more important to this administration than either Cheney or Rove in terms of what a resignation would look like. Impeachment alone probably won’t get him to step down – it would take impeachment and conviction to get him out of office.

Why do I say this? Well, there are many reasons, but in a nutshell, it is Gonzales who is the lynchpin to everything that this administration has done and probably many things that we don’t even know about from Bush’s term as Governor of Texas. For Gonzales to step down would be an admission that all of the power grabs, all of the lies, all of the crimes that were “justified” and all other actions are now seriously on the table (not that they weren’t to begin with).

As far as background, Gonzales’ history and relationships with Bush go back further than pretty much everyone else in this administration. The two men are pretty much inextricably linked on so many levels professionally going back more than a decade. They are literally partners in crime.

It was Gonzales who drafted the extremely narrow interpretations of clemency in Texas – allowing Bush to pardon one out of around 150 death penalty cases:

What kind of counsel did Gonzales provide? According to Berlow, he "repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence."

Berlow writes that the memos reflect "an extraordinarily narrow notion of clemency." They appear to have excluded, for instance, factors such as "mental illness or incompetence, childhood physical or sexual abuse, remorse, rehabilitation, racial discrimination in jury selection, the competence of the legal defense, or disparities in sentences between co-defendants or among defendants convicted of similar crimes."

It was Gonzales who got Bush out of the sticky situation where he would have had to admit to a drunk driving arrest and conviction while Governor of Texas.

It was Gonzales whose memorandum to Bush in January 2002 laid the foundation for the exclusion of certain “enemies” from the Geneva Conventions. It was Gonzales whose staff developed a 50 page legal justification as to what exactly constitutes torture and how far the “interrogation techniques” can go before they are actually deemed to be torture, as well as working closely with John Yoo to create numerous documents related to torture.

It is Gonzales who lied to Congress about the illegal wiretapping program. He also PERSONALLY APPROVED the warrantless wiretapping program in violation of federal law.

Even if he didn’t lie under oath, he is the nation’s top attorney and he should know better. Now, I am not a lawyer, but can’t attorneys get disbarred due to ethics violations? Surely lying about breaking federal laws would fall under these ethics violations.

It is Gonzales who helped draft the Military Order establishing the Military Commissions which was reported to mandate that the US military commit crimes under the War Crimes Act. It is Gonzales who justified this administration’s suspension of habeas corpus by telling Congress that he doesn’t believe that the US Constitution provides an express right to habeas corpus.

It is Gonzales who gave then-White House Chief of Staff Andy Card a twelve hour headstart about the document preservation request from the DOJ before it was announced to a wider audience – thereby raising the possibility of a document destruction effort.

It is Gonzales who has helped stonewall investigation after investigation of this administration, and it is Gonzales who lied under oath about Senate confirmations for US attorneys. It is Gonzales who said he was “ too busy to answer subpoenas” from Congress.

And of course, it is Gonzales who worked hand in hand with Bush with respect to the US attorney purge.

All of these are horrific – especially for an attorney. Even moreso for the nation’s top attorney. Many of these are crimes in and of themselves. But all of these are tied DIRECTLY to Bush himself. And to have Gonzales gone is akin to having Bush repudiate his entire administration and everything it has done.

I hope and pray that I am way off base here and we get an announcement that Gonzales is stepping down. But this is a man who Bush owes his entire career to. This is a man who presented the legal justification for every crime that was committed by this administration. This is a man who helped change the laws to suit a power grab that would have been illegal before the law changes.

Which makes it all the more important for him to be impeached, convicted and imprisoned.

"Mistakes were made"

Front paged at Booman Tribune and My Left Wing. Recommended at Daily Kos

Not this crap again.

“Mistakes were made” is not an apology. It is barely even an admission of anything. Yet, here we are, once again, with the lapdogs eating up the “admission of guilt” for the US attorney firings.

At least (gasp) CNN’s headline says just what it is – “Gonzales says ‘Mistakes were made’”. But what else did Gonzales say?

"My pledge to the American people is to find out what went wrong here," he said. "As we can all imagine, in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of justice, nor am I aware of all decisions."

But I bet he was sure of the discussions that he had with Bush, the list of US Attorneys, the ratings and the people who worked DIRECTLY for him who did the firing. Or, maybe he is using the Libby defense that there were so many crimes and lies and torture memos and coverups and lists and people and decisions that there is no possible way that he could possibly have remembered this particular lie or coverup or list or decision

That is all besides the point – “mistakes were made” is a serious copout. It means that you don’t even think enough of the people who were screwed by the magnitude of your actions or decisions to admit that you are responsible for screwing them over in the first place. But goddamn, this is nothing more than a “fuck you” to those who caught you not only with your hand in the cookie jar but caught bashing the cookie jar over your country’s head.

The other thing here is that these were not “mistakes”. These were premeditated decisions made purposefully, with the specific intent to accomplish what was ultimately accomplished. The only “mistake” to Gonzales was that it was uncovered and a spotlight was shone on yet another crime or abuse of power that our country’s top attorney committed. Willfully committed in order to punish those who weren’t bending to the administration’s demands and strongarming. The willful and certainly not mistaken changing of the laws in order to bypass the Senate for interim replacements. Also something that wasn’t “unknown” at the time it was done.

Admissions of guilt or wrongdoing are barely a first step in making amends. But the Reaganesque generic admission that “something went wrong somewhere but damned if I know what, how or why” is total bullshit and frankly insulting. Just like Bush said “mistakes were made” in Iraq. Just like Rice said mistakes were made in Iraq, but “I won’t tell you what they were until I leave office”.

Just like Scotty McLellan said about Iraq back in 2005, although he too wouldn’t divulge what they were.

Just like “mistakes were made” in a strike against Afghanistan which killed 70 civilians. Oopsie – no biggie though – you can be sure we will do a thorough investigation and get to the bottom of it.

Mistakes don’t just “happen”. They aren’t “just made”. Not usually. And not with this crew. At BEST, they are a result of negligence. More often, they are not “mistakes” at all – they are most certainly actions that are taken specifically to get the ultimate result.

Just like when Rice said that her comments about “thousands of tactical mistakes being made in Iraq” shouldn’t be taken literally.

Try telling that to those soldiers who have come back maimed or with severe mental health issues. Oh, but wait – they are getting substandard care for these injuries and conditions. I guess “mistakes were made” with making sure they get the proper treatment too.

Iraq withdrawal plans must be serious about Afghanistan too

It is nice to see a few somewhat concrete proposals developing about the disaster that is Iraq and how the US can extricate its’ military from being targets in a civil war. However, there is a very serious element that many seem to have glossed over, or are not paying enough attention to that should be a significant part of any Iraq withdrawal/redeployment plan.

That, obviously, is dealing with the threat of al Qaeda and the Taliban reconstituting and the steadily and rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Some of the Democratic proposals touch on this – none that I have seen devote enough to it. I only reference Democratic proposals since there is no republican proposal for dealing with Afghanistan since Bush decided to cut and run from there.

Interestingly, and ironically, the signature document put out by the Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding America’s Defenses includes four core “Missions” for the US military. One of them is to ”fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”. Looking at Afghanistan and Iraq, the US seems to have decisively and rapidly lost both.

However, there are still attacks being launched in Afghanistan. Late last year, I wrote a diary titled The bubbling disaster that is Pakistan which discussed the dire situation over there. Since then, we have learned that Pakistan has been accused of brokering deals with the Taliban and al Qaeda, that the Taliban is regrouping in Pakistan and that al Qaeda is regrouping as well.

Now it is too late to keep saying “I told you so” with respect to Afghanistan (even though we all did say so) – but there is talk of and preparation for a “spring offensive” by the Taliban in Afghanistan. No doubt that if this occurs, it will be bloody as hell, a disaster regardless of whether the “offensive” is turned away or whatever the outcome. A disaster for NATO, a disaster for the Afghan people, a disaster for the US troops, a disaster for other countries involved as well.

Yet, this ties in completely to what SHOULD be done, what SHOULD HAVE been done all along, and how to get our troops out of Iraq. Yes, it would be going from the proverbial frying pan to the fire, but they have no business being in Iraq anymore. I’ll give some more background and then throw out what, to me, should be part of any serious plan to (1) get out of Iraq, (2) deal with the Taliban and al Qaeda resurgence and (3) start acting serious about combating terrorism at its roots. It is already way way way too late to salvage anything in Iraq – but there is still a wee bit more time to actually reverse the trend in Afghanistan.

An article from last week by Globalsecurity.org touches on a few Democratic plans and seems to say some of the right things about Afghanistan:

n announcing their strategy, Democrats assert that redeployment from Iraq will allow U.S. efforts to refocus on Afghanistan, where American, NATO and Afghan National Army forces face strengthened resistance from Taleban and al-Qaida fighters.

"Afghanistan is the correct war, that is the one that will require readiness today, tomorrow, and in the days and months ahead," said Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Another article from late last week outlines three Democratic proposals for a withdrawal plan from Iraq. One bill, the “Bring Our Troops Home and Sovereignty of Iraq Restoration Act” says some good things about getting out of Iraq, but makes little to no mention about Afghanistan. The House Leadership plan (sponsored by Pelosi) makes mention of “refocusing our efforts on Afghanistan and fighting terrorism”, which is hopeful. The text of the bill is not yet available (at least as of earlier today), and I would hope that there will be significant meat to this area. The third plan is in the Senate and is a binding resolution to start redeployment of troops.

While all of these are noble and would get us out of Iraq, they don’t address the fact that those who actually attacked us and supported those who attacked us are still out there and preparing for new attacks in Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere. This doesn’t require the US to start invading countries again – it requires us to finish the “fight” (and I use the term in quotes since military action is hardly the only or best way to “fight” them) against terrorism.

What are my particular thoughts as far as details go? Well, for starters, troops should IMMEDIATELY be redeployed to Afghanistan from Iraq. At least 30,000 – 50,000 over the next month. Another 25,000 should be sent home from Iraq. Period.

What will happen here? Well, Iraq will still be a disastrous civil war, but we will see that having less troops will probably not have much of an impact as far as more or less violence between the Sunnis and the Shiites. It will also get around 1/8 of our troops some much needed rest. It will also keep close to 100,000 troops in Iraq as far as a staggered or phased withdrawal – still keeping in line with the plans that the Iraq Study Group, the Democrats in Congress, some of the Democratic Presidential candidates, and many others have put forth to date.

Let’s face it – 200,000 troops in Iraq now aren’t going to cut it. 500,000 troops in Iraq right now probably wouldn’t cut it, even if that was (1) feasible and (2) desirable by anyone. So an immediate redeployment of 1/3 to Afghanistan (where the real “terrorists” are) for what is already known as a planned effort by the Taliban and al Qaeda would help put our resources where they not only should be but should have been all along.

Then start your withdrawal from Iraq – get some troops home immediately as well. The rest of the world (or at least those who still take the US with any bit of seriousness) will see that we are serious about (1) getting out of Iraq, (2) not going into Iran, (3) not leaving their NATO troops hanging out to dry in Afghanistan and (4) helping to rebuild Afghanistan in a way that it should have been done in the first place.

If there is any chance of any success (military is only one of many parts and not even close to the largest part), we need to stop the resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda, (and yes, dealing with the “Pakistan issue” is a very delicate matter) and we need to at least show that there is an alternative to killing US and NATO troops. Whether a “democracy” is that alternative is irrelevant. It is to get serious about the country that we should never have abandoned in the first place and to defeat terrorism in a smart manner JUST AS MUCH as it is about getting out of Iraq.

Any plan that doesn’t seriously address Afghanistan in a detailed manner is doing a great disservice to the reality of combating terrorism. Iraq and Afghanistan are not mutually exclusive as far as a “plan”. Quite the contrary, they are inextricably linked.

Too far gone

Front paged at Booman Tribune and My Left Wing. Recommended at Daily Kos

You know that things have gone from horrible to miserable when the generals who replaced the generals who replaced the generals who were booted when they dared to question the planning of this horror called the Iraq invasion are throwing up their hands.

Are we at the point where we will hear someone ask “Why does General Petraeus want America to lose?” Because, frankly the news out of Iraq this week, if you read more than just the surface, is pretty damn disheartening. When the President runs through enough generals and top military officials because they see the writing on the wall and all that is left are “yes men” who will carry out his half baked “plans”, that is bad enough. When they start to say that we are screwed, then that should set off all sorts of alarms.

Things aren’t just “fucked” anymore. They are seriously truly critically on life support fucked. And even our generals know it.

Before I go any further, I want to address the “well, al Sadr and his militia are not attacking” meme. That is great news. But honestly, when you have months of warning that there will be an escalation targeting you and “cracking down” on violence (Version 4.2, of course), you are probably going to lay low for a while. Just like the whole “if there is a timeframe for withdrawal, they will wait it out” line that was so very popular.

Well, guess what? They are waiting this out.. And that isn’t even the bad news. Of course, the hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries and dozens of bombings over the past two weeks should be noted as something that is most certainly not progress or a good sign or even “last throes”.

But when our own generals are saying that the military hasn’t been able to adapt to the insurgency – you know that our troops are in greater danger than at any time over the past four years. And the finger should be pointed directly at those who figured that the military would be able to “wing it” after the invasion as everything would magically fall into place. With respect to planning, I’ll refer to a diary by some smart ass last month:

What about the planning and thinking going on from the US top brass? Sadly, that has been lacking since the very beginning. And it isn’t like many alarms didn’t go off immediately. In late 2003, the very conservative (to say the least) Washington Times ran an article titled US rushed post-Saddam planning, which cited a State Department report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that indicated:

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) elimination and exploitation planning efforts did not occur early enough in the process to allow CentCom to effectively execute the mission. The extent of the planning required was underestimated. Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission.

---snip---

WMD elimination/exploitation on a large scale was a new mission area. Division of responsibility for planning and execution was not clear. As a result planning occurred on an ad hoc basis and late in the process. Additionally, there were insufficient assets available to accomplish the mission. Existing assets were tasked to perform multiple, competing missions

A Congressional Budget Office report issued that same week raised concerns about the cost, feasibility and sustainability of an occupation in Iraq from a troop level standpoint. A State Department memorandum from February 2003 (warning: .pdf) indicated that there could be “serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance”. The memo went on to indicate that these issues were also raised with “top CentCom officials”.

Just this past week, original Iraq war plan documents were declassified which projected only 5,000 troops in Iraq by December 2006. While we think this is scary but laughable, it was called “completely unrealistic” and “delusional” by the Executive Director of the National Security Archives:

"Completely unrealistic assumptions about a post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans," said National Security Archive Executive Director Thomas Blanton. "First, they assumed that a provisional government would be in place by 'D-Day', then that the Iraqis would stay in their garrisons and be reliable partners, and finally that the post-hostilities phase would be a matter of mere 'months'. All of these were delusions."

But now, we are going from bad to worse in the “planning department”. First, General Petraeus rightfully said that this is not something that can be solved with the military alone:

"There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq," he said.

"Military action is necessary to help improve security... but it is not sufficient. There needs to be a political aspect."

He said some groups "who have felt the new Iraq did not have a place for them" would have to be engaged in talks.

While the petulance of this administration has shown through and through with respect to talks with Iran and Syria, the fact that representatives from all three countries were in the same room was an encouraging first step. Why this is happening now as opposed to four months ago (remember the flat out refusals by Rice, Cheney and Bush) to engage in talks with Iran and Syria) is a question that I don’t have the answer to, and frankly am just glad that something diplomatic is happening, no matter how small. The fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia are talking is also encouraging, but we need to take a more proactive role in the mess that we created.

On the heels of the multinational conference this past week, another disheartening admission was made by top generals. This time, echoes of prior warnings are being heard with respect to the lack of adaptability by the US military to the insurgency. The fact that this type of insurgency (among many other warnings that were ignored but then occurred anyway) was predicted by General Zinni - the man who did the original “war gaming” for an Iraq invasion back in the 1990s shows the gravity of the current situation.

According to the US generals:

What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.

By contrast, the US military is said to have been slow to respond to the challenges of fighting an insurgency. The senior officers described the insurgents as being able to adapt rapidly to exploit American rules of engagement and turn them against US forces, and quickly disseminate ways of destroying or disabling armoured vehicles.

---snip---

‘Iraq and Afghanistan are sucking up resources at a faster rate than we planned for,' one three-star general said. 'America's warriors need the latest technology to defeat an enemy who is smart, agile and cunning - things we did not expect of the Soviets.'

An enemy who is smart, agile and cunning. Too bad those who planned this ill-fated invasion and occupation are none of the above.

So now what is the answer? It seems painfully obvious that Bush’s latest plan is akin to putting the pedal to the medal as we hurtle straight into that brick wall.

Which makes it all the more imperative to defund the continuing operations, fund a redeployment and international effort towards rebuilding the economy and getting the Iraqi people basics like clean water, electricity and real safety. 150,000 of our troops can’t do that. All they can be are targets and sitting ducks.

Support the troops – get them out of Iraq. Support the Iraqis – get serious about fixing this mess, or at least not making it worse. Even our third (or is it fourth) round of generals can see it.

Out of the mainstream - even in his own party

Front paged at Blue Jersey

It is one thing to be out of step with what the American people want - whether it be on Iraq, on government spending, on having close ties to convicted republican felon Jack Abramoff or many other areas where Scott Garrett seems to excel.

But when it comes to Garrett's House votes, even to members of his own party, Garrett is far outside of the mainstream.

This past week (ending March 9), there were three major votes in the House. And our "esteemed" Representative was on the wrong side of all three. All three votes passed - Garrett voted against all three.

But that only tells part of the story.

Addressing Global Warming: The House voted 269-150 in favor of HR 202, which provided funding for energy independence and an advisory panel on global warming. Over 40 other Republican House Members voted for the measure, including EVERY OTHER NJ REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE.

Reclaimed Water and Sewage Overflow Grants: These were even more egregious, as these bills passed by 368-59 and 367-58 votes, respectively. The Reclaimed Water vote (HR 700) authorized $125 million in grants (the same cost of approximately one hour spent in Iraq) for developing alternate water sources for homes, farms and industries. Once again, Garrett was the ONLY NJ REPRESENTATIVE to vote against this bill.

The Sewage Overflow Grants bill (HR 569) authorized $1.8 billion (less than a week's worth of costs in Iraq) over five years to upgrade city sewerage systems. And once again, Garrett stands along among NJ republicans in voting against this bill.

Scott Garrett is not only out of touch with the American public and his own district, he is dangerously out of step with his own party.

Not just his own party, but his vote was out of step with every other NJ House representative.

It is time for him to go.

Who IS Alberto Gonzales?

Cross posted at ePluribus Media Journal. Recommended at Daily Kos

This article is the fifth in our series on the US Attorneys: [see the other articles] The Gonzales Seven; The Alberto Gonzales Appointments: How the Process Has Changed and Why this is so Important; Alberto Gonzales: Gaming the System Again in Arizona?; The Gonzales Seven: Who They are and Who is Replacing Them

Adam Lambert (clammyc)

08 March 2007

[Editors Note: ePluribus Media researcher and writer Chris White recently asked the question ... Alberto Gonzales, who is he really? This article is the result of Chris' question.]

[Update: (New York Times) In a private meeting on Capital Hill, Alberto Gonzales said the Justice Department would not block attempts to change the current rules on replacing US Attorneys.]

Admittedly, there is much information publicly available regarding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his rise to White House Counsel and then to his current position of Attorney General. His impact on the direction of the country over the past six years is immense.




His documents -- his advice and his counsel -- have been considered by some to lay the foundation for torture, suspension of habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping, the expansion of power in the Executive Branch and, most recently, what at least appears to be the politically motivated replacement of many U.S. Attorneys with Administration loyalists, in order to pad their resumes, as William Mercer in his capacity as Associate Attorney General (not as U.S. Attorney for the Montana District) apparently suggested to two of the resigning U.S. Attorneys¹.

However, little attention has been given to just how the second of eight children who shared a two bedroom house with his siblings and parents, rose to the level of the nation's top prosecutor. Additionally, there has not been much exposure as to how such a highly intelligent, hardworking individual who gained many honors and accolades during his early career would ultimately craft legal positions that changed the basis for what is considered torture and the interpretation of the Bill of Rights.

School and the Early Years

Gonzales went to public school, Rice University and Harvard Law School. He spent two years serving in the US Air Force (1973 - 1975) and then attended the Air Force Academy for two years (1975 - 1977). He received many honors as well as participated in countless professional and civic activities. From his bio on the White House website:

Among his many professional and civic activities, Gonzales was elected to the American Law Institute in 1999. He was a board trustee of the Texas Bar Foundation from 1996 to 1999, a board director for the State Bar of Texas from 1991 to 1994, and President of the Houston Hispanic Bar Association from 1990 to 1991. He was a board director of the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast from 1993 to 1994, and President of Leadership Houston during this same period. In 1994, Gonzales served as Chair of the Commission for District Decentralization of the Houston Independent School District, and as a member of the Committee on Undergraduate Admissions for Rice University. Gonzales was Special Legal Counsel to the Houston Host Committee for the 1990 Summit of Industrialized Nations, and a member of delegations sent by the American Council of Young Political Leaders to Mexico in 1996 and to the People's Republic of China in 1995.



Among his many honors, in 2003 alone, Gonzales was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Alumni Hall of Fame, was honored with the Good Neighbor Award from the United States-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, and received President's Awards from the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the League of United Latin American Citizens. In 2002, he was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of Rice University by the Association of Rice Alumni and was honored by the Harvard Law School Association with the Harvard Law School Association Award. Gonzales was recognized as the 1999 Latino Lawyer of the Year by the Hispanic National Bar Association, and he received a Presidential Citation from the State Bar of Texas in 1997 for his dedication to addressing basic legal needs of the indigent. He was chosen as one of the Five Outstanding Young Texans by the Texas Jaycees in 1994, and as the Outstanding Young Lawyer of Texas by the Texas Young Lawyers Association in 1992. Gonzales was honored by the United Way in 1993 with a Commitment to Leadership Award, and received the Hispanic Salute Award in 1989 from the Houston Metro Ford Dealers for his work in the field of education.

Political Career

Gonzales didn't work with George W. Bush until 1994, when he became a senior adviser to the governor, chief elections officer, and the governor's lead liaison on Mexican and border issues. Prior to this, Gonzales was with the law firm Vinson & Elkins LLP from 1982 - 1994, and ultimately became a partner with the firm. There were reports that Gonzales initially turned down an offer to work as part of George H.W. Bush's administration but then later accepted an offer from then-Governor George W. Bush to work for his administration. In 1997 he was appointed as Bush's Secretary of State, and in 1999, he was appointed by Governor Bush to the Texas Supreme Court and then White House Counsel in 2001.

If there is one word that describes Gonzales' relationship with George W. Bush and his rise to Attorney General, it is loyalty. Since being appointed to Secretary of State, Gonzales has taken numerous actions that can only be justified as extreme loyalty to the man who has put him in positions for which, some say, that Gonzales had few prior qualifications.

Gonzales' Tenure as Secretary of State

In light of the testimony given during the March 6^th House Hearings on H.R. 580 and the mass, forced resignations of U.S. Attorneys, it is interesting to note that one of the policy directives seems to have been increased quotas on federal death sentence prosecutions, see the Wall Street Journal's excellent article: Federal Prosecutors Widen Pursuit Of Death Penalty as States Ease Off.

While Bush was Governor of Texas from 1994 - 1999, there were over 150 capital punishment executions -- a number that was described by Alan Berlow of The Atlantic Monthly as "a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American history." As Governor, Bush had the power to grant clemency for any of these executions, yet he granted clemency for only one. From 1995 - 1997, it was Gonzales, in his role as (prior to becoming Secretary of State) who was in a position to draft legal documents for Bush as to whether clemency should be granted or if the execution should proceed.

It is here that Gonzales' narrow interpretation of laws may have originated. The documents that he drafted regarding clemency, Gonzales frequently excluded many factors -- some which were crucial to the death penalty sentence -- which could have served as the basis for clemency. As noted in an article by John Dean in 2003:

What kind of counsel did Gonzales provide? According to Berlow, he "repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence."



Berlow writes that the memos reflect "an extraordinarily narrow notion of clemency." They appear to have excluded, for instance, factors such as "mental illness or incompetence, childhood physical or sexual abuse, remorse, rehabilitation, racial discrimination in jury selection, the competence of the legal defense, or disparities in sentences between co-defendants or among defendants convicted of similar crimes."

One such case was that of Terry Washington. Washington was a thirty three year old mentally retarded man who was convicted of murder. However, in the clemency document, Gonzales never mentioned Washington's mental handicap, nor the fact that his lawyer never called a mental health expert at his trial. A Slate article from 2004 gives the following description of Gonzales' work with respect to clemency:

It's not clear whether Bush directed Gonzales to provide such superficial and conclusory legal research, or whether Gonzales did so of his own accord. Regardless, the point remains that the White House's new nominee to head the Justice Department turned in work that would have barely earned a passing grade in law school, let alone satisfy the requirements of a job in which life and death were at stake. Perhaps more important, these early memos from Texas revealed Gonzales' startling willingness to sacrifice rigorous legal analysis to achieve pre-ordained policy results at the drop of a Stetson.

Another controversial act by Secretary of State Gonzales was his legal argument for Bush's not serving on a Texas jury in a drunk driving case. At first glance, it appeared that Gonzales was just looking to spare the Governor from serving on a jury, however a closer examination revealed otherwise. As reported in Newsweek during early 2006, Bush's and Gonzales' motives may very well have been to avoid the disclosure of his 1976 arrest and conviction of driving under the influence of alcohol. The arrest and conviction were almost exposed in 1996 -- save for a legal opinion by Gonzales that a Governor should not sit on a jury due to a conflict of interest. Gonzales argued that Bush, as Governor, may ultimately be in a position to grant a pardon to the defendant, and therefore, should not serve on the jury. And indeed, Bush's drunken driven arrest and conviction were not made public until the later stages of the 2000 presidential campaign.

While Gonzales' argument regarding jury duty may sound plausible on the surface, there are a few factors that make it highly questionable. According to Travis Country Judge David Crain, the judge in this case:

"He [Gonzales] raised the issue," Crain said. Crain said he found Gonzales's argument surprising, since it was "extremely unlikely" that a drunken-driving conviction would ever lead to a pardon petition to Bush. But "out of deference" to the governor, Crain said, the other lawyers went along. Wahlberg said he agreed to make the motion striking Bush because he didn't want the hard-line governor on his jury anyway. But there was little doubt among the participants as to what was going on. "In public, they were making a big show of how he was prepared to serve," said Crain. "In the back room, they were trying to get him off."

Additionally, Bush's jury questionnaire contained a question as to whether he was ever accused in a criminal case -- a question that he left blank. While Gonzales denied any request or meeting to have Bush excluded from the jury, this was disputed by the lawyer for the defendant.

Texas Supreme Court

Gonzales' term on the Texas Supreme Court -- as far as decisions go, wasn't too controversial. According to a profile in Hispanic Magazine:

Evidence of Gonzales' moderate bent can be found in many of his decisions as a Texas Supreme Court justice. He voted with the majority to weaken a state law requiring minors to notify a parent before getting an abortion. He also wrote a landmark opinion that opened the door for some victims of illnesses caused by on-the-job exposure to asbestos to sue more than once over their injuries - a decision decried by some conservatives.

Was there a conflict of interest with respect to Gonzales and rulings regarding Halliburton - a company of which Dick Cheney was still CEO? A few years later, Gonzales fought to keep Cheney's energy commission meetings secret, and once again, loyalty issues are raised. An article written around the time Gonzales was nominated as White House Counsel shed light on favorable rulings for Halliburton and Halliburton's contributions to Gonzales, the candidate. According to the article:

Cheney's Halliburton corporation, through its executives and its separate subsidiaries, was the second-largest corporate contributor to Texas Supreme Court races in the last three election cycles, contributing over $79,000 to the Justices. Five times in the past seven years, cases involving Halliburton have come before the Texas Supreme Court, and each time the Court has either ruled for the company or refused to hear an appeal of a favorable verdict for the firm from a lower court.


In 1999, a Halliburton employee had won a $2.6 million trial verdict due to allegations that a company supervisor framed him to test positive for cocaine, only to see the verdict overturned by a Texas Court of Appeals. Just before the Texas Supreme Court ruled on the case, Halliburton gave a number of contributions to the Justices, including $3000 to Alberto Gonzales. None of the Justices recused themselves from the case and the Court refused to hear the appeal against Halliburton.


Making the Gonzales conflict even more controversial is the fact that before being appointed to office, Gonzales had been a partner at the law firm Vinson & Elkins, L.L.P. in Houston which had Halliburton as a major client. And Gonzales worked in the section where Halliburton was represented where he had a strong relationship with the firm.

There were other examples in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram of July 29, 2000 -- numerous cases before the Texas Supreme Court that were decided in favor of Halliburton or its subsidiaries, additional donations made during this time period and potential impact or conflict of the donations on the rulings.

Appointments as White House Counsel

Loyalty was once again a potential issue, when, as White House Counsel, Gonzales surrounded himself with attorneys whose chief skills seemed to be their usefulness in legal attacks on Democratic politicians. The Hispanic Magazine article mentions a number of people who had ties to George W. Bush or the Republican Party:

The most senior of his assistants is Timothy Flanigan, who most recently worked on Bush's efforts to stop a recount of votes in Florida. Another hire is Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote part of the Starr Report on President Clinton's involvement with Monica Lewinsky and led independent counsel Ken Starr's investigation into the death of former White House counsel Vincent Foster. Kavanaugh also wrote in defense of Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives when they sought the right to apply for asylum for the Cuban shipwreck survivor.


Some of the other "dream-team" of conservative attorneys Gonzales has ushered into the White House include a lawyer who worked on the Senate Whitewater investigation and several former clerks of conservative Supreme Court justices.

Although no conclusions can be drawn, parallels surface as we learn more about the agendas surrounding the December 7^th, Pearl Harbor Day forced resignation of six U.S. Attorneys. In reviewing the allegations that surfaced during the March 6, 2007 House hearings on H.R. 580, similar themes arise: increased federal prosecution for the death penalty, "padding" of Republican loyalists' resumes, immigration and potential legal maneuvering for political cover-ups.

Footnotes

¹ House Committee Hearings during questioning of subpoenaed "former" US Attorneys, March 6^th, 2007.

About the Author: Adam Lambert is a tax consultant living and working in the New York City area. Blogging under the name “clammyc," he has researched and written extensively on issues involving Iraq, the Bush administration and the “war on terror.”


ePluribus Media Contributors: avahome, standingup, cho, BeverlyinNH & roxy

Don't you dare pardon Libby, Mr. President

Front paged at Booman Tribune and My Left Wing. Recommeneded at Daily Kos

This is not a threat – rather it is a word of advice. And also a plea, to some degree.

Mr. president – for over six years, you and those who you chose to help “lead” our country have thumbed your nose at justice, those who demand accountability, those who saw through your administration’s deception, greed, indifference, half-truths (at best) and tragic acts and decisions.

You and your administration have been responsible for, suppressed the truth about and in many instances covered up so many egregious acts that not only would have gotten any other president impeached but his entire administration held up as an example of everything that can go wrong in a representative democracy.

These acts have been the result of many a constitutional scholar debating just how many times that federal laws were broken – whether they were done willfully enough to warrant criminal investigations and actually whether classified information was leaked in such a manner as to warrant criminal charges, the yanking of security credentials and the prompting of members at the highest levels of your government to either resign in disgust (or disgrace).

The country has had enough of you and your administration. Almost 6 in 10 just wanted your presidency to be over as of last month. And that was before the news broke about the politically motivated firings of way too many US Attorneys, the recent run of spectacularly horrific violence in Iraq, the news about the resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda and the guilty verdict of your Vice President’s most senior advisor on four counts related to lying about the leak of classified information.

The Democrats in Congress are just about finally getting the message that yes, the public didn’t just mean start talking about Iraq – it meant, “get us the hell out”. The Plame leak case isn’t over. No – now it is going to begin again, even if Fitzgerald is done. There is a new chapter in the public’s mind. And it starts with “Vice President’s Chief of Staff lied about the leak of classified information and quite possibly implicated both the President’s closest advisor as well as the Vice President”.

Calls for impeachment are growing – of Alberto Gonzalez, of Vice President Cheney, of Condoleezza Rice and of you. Congressional investigations are underway into so many of the possible impeachable offenses, and more are coming as more possibly impeachable offenses are uncovered. More and more people are talking about it – more information is coming out, the Overton Window is shifting.

If the evidence is there, it will not be buried. It will not be suppressed as it may have been by Senator Pat Roberts, or by the Attorney General’s Office, or by your threats. Not anymore. Even some republicans are getting fed up. Maybe not enough yet, but they want to keep their jobs in 2008.

And in this instance, we are talking about one of the most senior people in your administration who was just convicted of his participation in and the covering up of leaked classified information relating to an entire unit of the CIA that was investigating nuclear proliferations – between the country that is linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda resurgence and the country who you oh-so-desperately want to drop “a couple-uh-big ‘uns” on.

If you dare to pardon this man – hell, if you don’t come out and say that you will NOT pardon this man – well a lot fewer republicans will get to keep their jobs in 2008. Which, of course, is fine with me. More importantly, you will become a willing participant in the leak of classified information. Which would be a further disgrace to this country.

There are still some hardcore true patriots who still believe in you, your administration and your noble cause to “fight terror and spread freedom”. That support will get shot to shit the minute you pardon him. And your party’s failure to stop you from doing this as well as your tacit support of Libby’s actions will be yet another Katrina moment.

On the other hand, a pardon would weaken your administration further – to the point where it could actually benefit the rest of us (that is, if you pardon Libby before the end of your term). It could lead to the final breaking point, it could lead to even your more ardent cheerleaders saying “enough”. It could lead to others in your own party (as Senator Hagel recently did) calling for impeachment. It could save further embarrassment for them down the road.

And as good as that all is, it will make this country even more of a laughingstock in the global community’s eyes – and as much as I would love to see all of your administration thrown out and convicted of every crime you committed, for this country to allow you to pardon Libby would be a mistake of immeasurable proportions. And even though all we can do is shout warnings and pleas and demands, it would be seen as yet another example where this country has allowed its’ leaders to make them look like the fools they were for allowing these leaders to take power in the first place.

I’d love to see you get what you deserve. But since pardoning a criminal, even if he is your Vice President’s Chief of Staff (or Vice President for that matter) isn’t an impeachable offense, I’d have to settle for that being an event to help sway public opinion towards stopping your administration’s power grab at the cost of you creating yet another stain on this country’s history.

Don’t do it.

Jim Nicholson: The "Brownie" of the VA

Front paged at Booman Tribune and ePluribus Media

I haven’t seen this angle discussed in the story of Walter Reed and the horrible conditions that our veterans are being subjected to as they seek the care they desperately need and deserve. And while it isn’t surprising, this is something that should be noted – the Secretary for Veteran’s Affairs is none other than long-time republican party official and former RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson.

Now, Nicholson does have some level of qualification in that he did serve in the military during Vietnam and was in the Army Reserves for over 20 years. But, this looks more like a position that was awarded to a man whose prior two decades was spent serving the republican party. From his bio on the White House website:

Mr. Nicholson earned a master's degree from Columbia University in New York, and a law degree from the University of Denver. He practiced law in Denver, specializing in real estate, municipal finance and zoning law. In 1978 he founded Nicholson Enterprises, Inc., a developer of planned residential communities, and in 1987 he bought Renaissance Homes, which became an award-winning builder of quality custom homes.

In January 1986, Mr. Nicholson was elected committeeman from Colorado for the Republican National Committee (RNC). In 1993 he was elected vice-chairman of the RNC, and in January 1997, he was elected chairman of the RNC, where he served for four years, through the elections of 2000.

Not much in terms of qualifications to run an organization the size of the VA and serve the needs of multiple hundreds of thousands of veterans – especially at a time when there would be a significant expansion of the requirements and need for care of veterans who were returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. A comment made by murrayewv in testvet6778’s diary contains the following quote from Paul Krugman regarding the level of care at the VA under the Clinton Administration:

What makes this a particular shame is that in the Clinton years, veterans’ health care — like the Federal Emergency Management Agency — became a shining example of how good leadership can revitalize a troubled government program. By the early years of this decade the Veterans Health Administration was, by many measures, providing the highest-quality health care in America....

But as with FEMA, the Bush administration has done all it can to undermine that achievement. And the Walter Reed scandal is another Hurricane Katrina: the moment when the administration’s misgovernment became obvious to everyone.

Regarding Nicholson, just what are his qualifications that would allow him to be the Secretary of Veterans Affairs? Well, raising gobs of money in a quid-pro-quo for favorable legislation after the 2000 election. Take a couple of these examples:

Team 100 Call Sheet from Jim Nicholson to former ConAgra Chairman: A 2000 "call sheet" prepared for a call by then-RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson to Phil Fletcher, former Chairman and CEO of ConAgra. The memo notes that Fletcher has told Clayton Yeutter, a former Republican Secretary of Agriculture, "in confidence that he may be interested in an ambassadorial position in the Bush administration." The memo instructs Nicholson to ask Fletcher to join Team 100, which requires an initial $100,000 contribution and $25,000 in every subsequent year of membership.

A former Chairman and CEO of a large corporation may be interested in an ambassadorship, so a request is made for hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the RNC.

Team 100 Call Sheet for U.E. Patrick of Patrick Petroleum: 2000 "call sheet" prepared for a call by then-RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson, instructing him to ask U.E. Patrick of Patrick Petroleum to join Team 100, which requires an initial $100,000 contribution and $25,000 in every subsequent year of membership. The memo notes that Patrick is waiting to decide whether to give the expected contribution because of "pending questions about the estate tax, as he feels the proposed bill is not aggressive enough." Before considering joining Team 100, the memo says, Patrick expects to be "informed on what the party's goals are with the estate tax, as it personally affects him."

If it walks like a bribe and smells like a bribe…..consideration given to donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the RNC depending on what can be done with the estate tax.

Letter to Chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb: A 1999 letter from then-Republican National Committee Chair Jim Nicholson to the chairman of Bristol-Meyers Squibb, a major pharmaceutical house, noting the need to "keep the lines of communications open" if Congress is to "continue passing legislation that will benefit your industry," and suggesting that the company contribute $250,000 to the Republican National Committee.

Now, I’m not saying that this doesn’t go on all the time, and doesn’t go on from both sides of the aisle. But these are three of many examples where Nicholson, in his role as RNC Chairman was involved with donations-for-legislation or other favors – none of which make him qualified for running the VA.

Another of Nicholson’s “qualifications” includes the 1999 establishment of the Republican Attorneys General Association which was to raise money from large corporations who were seeking to avoid litigation or who were involved in litigation with states. According to the Washington Post article linked above, this even raised some concerns among Republican Attorneys General:

So far, RAGA has enlisted seven of the 15 Republican attorneys general in the nation, and some have told colleagues they joined reluctantly, urged by GOP officials in their states. Besides Pryor and Cornyn, attorneys general in Delaware, Nebraska, South Carolina, Virginia and Wyoming have signed up.

Asked why he did not join the group, Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher said, "I'm a Republican and I try to keep politics out of my business as attorney general."

"We're a family, and families can disagree," Grant Woods, former Republican attorney general of Arizona, told the National Association of Attorneys General during a discussion about RAGA at its spring meeting here last week. "But don't do this."

Companies that made contributions included Microsoft (when it was involved in antitrust litigation with 19 states), SBC Communications (whose acquisition of Ameritech was being questioned by state officials) and Aetna (who was accused of fraud) were all contributors. Interestingly, in the Aetna case, the investigation by former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales slowed down significantly when is successor (and current Senator) Jon Cornyn.

Since being appointed Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2004, things, shall we say, have not gone too smoothly for Nicholson. An article in The New Republic late last year touched on his stellar performance:

After drastically underestimating the number of veterans who would need medical care in 2005, former Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson tackled 2006 with gusto. With the veteran population aging rapidly, Nicholson had the dubious honor of presiding over what he called the biggest graveyard expansion "since the Civil War."

Then there were the Wiccans. This May, Nicholson's agency found itself entangled in controversy over its decision to forbid a Nevada widow from placing a Wiccan pentacle on her slain husband's memorial plaque. Veterans Affairs (VA), which recognizes 38 other emblems of faith--including the "Humanist Emblem of Spirit"--now faces litigation from numerous Wiccan families.

And then, this spring, a VA analyst's laptop--which contained the personal information of 26.5 million veterans--was stolen. But we can't fault Nicholson for the ensuing mess, since no one in his office bothered to tell him about it until two weeks after it happened. Some might ask why Nicholson didn't do more to improve the department's "F" rating for computer security, which it received in four out of the last five years. But at least one fan doesn't mind: As Press Secretary Tony Snow put it, Bush still has "full faith and confidence" in the VA chief.

The only thing to say here is “hey Jimmy, you’re doin’ a heckuva job.”